Is Gay Pride Making Progress In American Sports?: Sexual Orientation and the Sochi Olympics

As the Winter Olympics get underway this Friday in Sochi, this seems to be a high point for gay rights in American sports. The official U.S. delegation to the Games features three prominent retired gay athletes: Billie Jean King, the tennis champion and longtime activist; Caitlin Cahow, a medalist in ice hockey; and Brian Boitano, the 1988 gold medalist in figure skating, who came out as gay just two days after he was named to the delegation. When President Obama announced his picks, back in December, these selections were seen as a specific rebuke to Russia’s retrograde restrictions on so-called “gay propaganda” passed by the government of Vladimir Putin. During his State of the Union address last Tuesday, Obama made special mention of sexual orientation when he celebrated the diversity of the American Olympic team: “We believe in the inherent dignity and equality of every human being, regardless of race or religion, creed or sexual orientation. And next week, the world will see one expression of that commitment—when Team USA marches the red, white, and blue into the Olympic Stadium—and brings home the gold.”

While Obama spoke, basketball player Jason Collins sat a few rows behind Michelle Obama, invited as a guest of the First Lady. Last April, Collins came out in a moving essay for Sports Illustrated, becoming the first out active male athlete in a major American professional team sport. After his announcement, scores of current and former players offered messages of support. Collins’s moment was just one milestone in a year that saw a surging tide of victories for gay rights and marriage equality across the country.

Meanwhile, in Russia, Putin has offered a very different vision of inclusiveness and progress. Recently he said that gays and lesbians who were concerned about attending the Olympics need not worry: “You can feel relaxed and calm, but leave children alone please.” The mayor of Sochi, Anatoly Pakhomov,told an interviewer that there were no gay people in his city. Compared with these increasingly cartoonish, though still chilling, examples of intolerance, there is indeed good reason for Americans to feel proud of our more free and fair society. But having a better gay rights record than contemporary Russia is no great triumph—and mistaking it for one obscures the challenges that still face LGBT people, and athletes, here at home.

Collins’s story, for example, didn’t end when he came out—though his career may have. A free agent after last season, he wasn’t signed by anyone, meaning that he hasn’t played in a pro game since he went public with the news. The explanation for this, however, is complicated. Collins is an older player and was already clearly in the final stage of his career. His status as a veteran means that he’s owed a relatively high minimum salary. Maybe he would have been finished even before the announcement, but the fact that he hasn’t gotten a chance this year means that his status as an “active gay athlete” has been somewhat diminished. But that title quickly got picked up by the 26-year-old pro soccer player Robbie Rogers, who, two months before Collins, came out in a blog post. A few months later, he was signed by the Los Angeles Galaxy and completed a season with the team this fall. Recently Rogers talked to CNN about the challenges of being gay in a team sport: “Whether it was joking or whether it was malicious, I just heard so many different things that scarred me and made me think that there’s no chance I’m ever going to come out—ever—to anyone.”

Among male athletes in the U.S., the past year also brought its share of setbacks. Gay rights activists were cheered when members of the San Francisco 49ers appeared in a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign in 2012. Yet six months later, two of the players featured said that they didn’t know what they had been endorsing—and the organization took down the video. Former Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe alleged that one of the team’s coaches had bullied him for his support of marriage equality and repeatedly used disgusting antigay rhetoric in the locker room. And Green Bay Packers star quarterback Aaron Rodgers told a reporter, taking an unfortunate tone of defensiveness, “I’m just going to say I’m not gay. I really, really like women,” after vague rumors circulated about his sexuality.

Things were better, though, for female athletes. After being chosen as the top pick in the WNBA draft, basketball star Brittney Griner said that she was a lesbian in a matter-of-fact way during a group interview with other, straight, players. The relatively unremarkable response to her announcement among fans and the media may simply reflect women’s basketball’s lesser prominence in the culture. But it may also have had to do with the nature of women’s team sports. As Elena Delle Donne, one of Griner’s peers, said: “In our sport, we’re fine with it. We’re all friends, and I want everybody to be who they are. You shouldn’t have to lie, that’s not fair. Hopefully the men can one day adopt that same attitude that we have.” This was a long way from the feelings of doubt and alienation that tennis players Martina Navratilova and King had to overcome when they became the first prominent “out” women athletes in the country.

The Olympics have long forced Americans to confront their country’s history of discrimination—whether it be African-American track star Jesse Owens infuriating Hitler with his track-and-field excellence at the 1936 Games in Berlin or the sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the Black Power salute on the podium in Mexico City in 1968. These moments have since become symbols of racial progress—viewed with pride as evidence of the United States’ progressivism displayed on a world stage. Yet both stories had troubling second acts: Owens returned to a deeply racist country where he struggled to earn a living, forced at one point into accepting stunt races against horses to provide for his family; Smith and Carlos were branded as radicals who had put themselves ahead of their country.

This fall, before she was selected to join the U.S. delegation, King, speaking of the gay rights movement, told USA Today that “sometimes I think we need a John Carlos moment.” There are reasons to think that these next two weeks could provide it. Russia’s aggressive backwardness has made LGBT rights the biggest political issue of these Games. A campaign called Principle 6, which refers to part of the Olympic charter that forbids discrimination, has partnered with American Apparel to raise money for Russian LGBT groups, and has attracted the support of several high-profile athletes. Look for their distinctive red shirts and hoodies at Sochi. One supporter is Belle Brockhoff, an Australian snowboarder who came out this summer, who will also be competing in this year’s Games. She had said previously that she planned to “rip on [Putin’s] ass” during interviews while in Russia. But it can be difficult to balance the roles of activist and athlete—this week, citing her desire to compete and her parents’ fear for her safety, Brockhoff told the BBC that she “won’t be getting into anything political.”

If an American athlete uses his or her prominence to direct the world’s attention to LGBT rights, it will be an expression of how far the country has come over the past few years. But it wouldn’t just be a challenge to Russia, or the other countries of the world with human rights records worse than our own. It will be a challenge to viewers back home, as well. And just like in 1968, when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists, not every American will be cheering. There is work left to be done.

Ian Crouch lives in Boston and writes about sports and culture for newyorker.com. He is @iancrouch on Twitter.